Pharrell Williams probably isn’t the first musician you would think of to have their life be turned into movie, let alone a Lego movie — until you take a look at how many hits he’s had a hand in.
With The Neptunes, there’s over a dozen top-10 hits, including “U Don’t Have to Call” by Usher, “Hot In Herre” by Nelly, “Rock Your Body” by Justin Timberlake, “Milkshake” by Kelis, “Drop It Like It’s Hot” by Snoop Dogg, “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani, and “Money Maker” by Ludacris. Pharrell also produced “Blurred Lines” and wrote “Happy” (which he also sings) and “Get Lucky,” two impossibly catchy songs that will be played at weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs until the end of time. So, yeah, with that context, the Pharrell movie Piece By Piece makes a lot more sense.
Here’s everything to know about Piece By Piece, including plot details, the voice cast, and when it comes out.
Plot
The trailer for Piece By Piece begins with Pharrell telling Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) that it would be cool “if we told my story with Lego pieces.” It’s not dissimilar from how it happened in real life. “That’s how the conversation went down in my head,” Neville told Variety. “I didn’t know what it was going to be, but it was going to be interesting and I was completely in.”
Pharrell was initially wary of participating in a biopic or documentary about himself because “everyone was doing them at the time, and I was like, ‘Hell no.’ I never want to do what everybody else is doing. Everybody’s taking the Lincoln Tunnel, then I want to take a plane,” he explained. “But when [Neville] finally said the magic words, ‘You can do it any way you want,’ I knew deep down inside that I wanted to do it through Lego.” Sounds like enjoyed Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as much as I did (fun game!).
Piece By Piece features animated reenactments of key moments in Pharrell’s life and interviews with some of his famous collaborators, including Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani, and Jay Z. Except they didn’t know they were going to appear in Lego form. “We purposely did not tell anyone that that would be the finished product. We wanted people to just answer the questions and really give their full, unedited reactions to the opportunity to do the interviews,” the hit-maker confessed. “Because if we would’ve said, ‘Okay, this is going to be in Lego,’ then people would have sort of curved what they were saying.”
Pharrell’s hope with Piece By Piece is to inspire people to follow their ambitions, as he did. “It’s never too late for you to go pick up a Lego set and make things and be a co-creator. It’s never too late to wake up to that. It’s never too late to gain that self-awareness,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “This is my dream, for people to have that.”
Cast
The voice cast consists of [famous person] as themselves, beginning with Pharrell Williams as, well, himself. There’s also Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay Z, and Snoop Dogg.
Release Date
It’s surprisingly been five years since the last big-screen Lego movie, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. That streak comes to an end on October 11, when Piece By Piece opens in theaters (the same weekend as Saturday Night, Terrifier 3, and We Live In Time — and they say counterprogramming is dead).
Trailer
You can check out the trailer for Piece By Piece below.
